


Saudades

by Ysabetwordsmith



Series: Love Is For Children [15]
Category: Hulk (2003), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: #coulsonlives, Alienation, Anger, Anger Management, Angst, Betrayal, Body Dysphoria, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce!whump, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Caregiving, Casualties, Child Marriage, Childlessness, Colonialism, Communication, Confusion, Depression, Destruction, Domestic Violence, Dreams, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Constipation, Emotionally Repressed, Fear, Fear of Punishment, Fear of loss, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homelessness, Hope, Hulk Feels, Hulk Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insomnia, Killing Dreams, Lies, Loss, Loss of Control, Love, Mass Destruction, Multiplicity/Plurality, Nobody Listens to Bruce, Non-Sexual Age Play, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-sexual, Parental Death, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Poverty, Regret, Revictimization, Running Away, Saving the World, Science Bros, Self-Denial, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt, Surprises, Travel, learned helplessness, victimization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1870923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce spends years on the run, hunted and hurting, trying to make the world a better place anyhow. Then the Avengers happen, and things begin to get better, and Bruce does not know what to do with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudades

**Author's Note:**

> A majority of this poem is sad, because Bruce's past and his head are both unhappy places, although it has a happy ending. Consider your headspace before reading onward.
> 
> Also, this originally appeared in multiple parts on Dreamwidth, and people disliked that. So I'm splicing the whole poem together here. There is no way the end notes will fit, so you'll need to read those on the [original DW posts](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9628057.html).

Bruce is hiding out in Brazil,  
trying to scrabble his way  
through Portuguese and other problems,  
when he learns the word  
that defines his life.

_Tenho saudades de você,_  
he thinks of his mother  
and his childhood home,  
both left in the dust of history;  
a longing for what was loved  
but can never return.  
 _I miss you_.

Brazil is full of lost people,  
the displaced and the disappeared,  
who understand what it is  
to be torn away  
from all that you hold dear.

There are words for this in particular,  
Bruce learns, rolling them in mouth and mind,  
 _saudades de casa ou da família,_  
homesickness for house or family.

_Tenho saudades de você,_  
he thinks of his lover  
with her wild black hair,  
heart as tempestuous as his own,  
mind as gloriously bright,  
the sparks they kindled between them --  
missing now, and bound to stay so,  
for he has no idea where Betty is  
and will not put her at risk  
by trying to find her.  
 _I miss you_.

This is the love that remains  
after someone is gone.

This is the last thing  
he has to be grateful for:  
that he has people and places to miss.

_Tenho saudades de você,_  
he thinks of his former career,  
but his old way of life is gone  
and there is no getting it back --  
not the security or the salary,  
not the occasional glimpses of regard,  
not the momentary peace of mind  
when the broken record of his memory  
skipped itself into silence.  
 _I miss you_.

There is not much need for a scientist  
in the streets of Rio de Janeiro,  
but the battered factories  
can use what mechanical aptitude  
Bruce can muster, and everywhere  
there is always a call  
for a doctor in the house.

It is desperation that turns  
book-learning into practical skill,  
but the people of the _favelas_  
do not care that he is desperate,  
only that he is there.

_Tenho saudades de você,_  
he thinks at the monster within,  
 _Ainda mantenha-se portanto posso bater em você_.  
Bruce has tried, God help him,  
to reason with the unreasoning beast  
and it has all been useless  
or worse than useless.  
 _I miss you. Hold still so I can hit you_.

It can be described as an emptiness,  
and he feels that so keenly;  
there is always a roaring inside him now  
as if his skin has hardened into a seashell  
and the sound of the surf  
beats and beats against the curves of himself.

He wishes that the Other  
would go away, _go away,_  
but that is a futile fantasy and  
he has no patience for magical thinking.

Bruce learns to build a dam  
to hold back his emotions,  
let the hollowness of his heart  
fill like a river valley  
until it becomes a lake,  
calm and blue on the surface.

_Matar as saudades,_  
Bruce thinks,  
and he wants to kill the regrets,  
wishes he could drown his sorrows,  
but he knows they can swim like sewer rats.

Regrets are not all  
that he thinks about killing,  
but no, he isn't ready  
to finish that thought --  
not yet, not quite.

The people around him  
are small and brown, not big and green,  
but they know what it is  
to be marked;  
and even though  
he does not look like one of them,  
they understand that he is.

Bruce knows what it is like  
to live with this constant feeling,  
a presence of absence,  
the wistful yearning to be whole;  
he reflects it back to them,  
and perhaps for a time  
the sorrow is divided  
by being shared.

Then the soldiers come  
(the soldiers _always_ come for him)  
with their guns and their heavy boots  
and they chase but cannot catch him  
through the streets and roofs of the _favelas_  
that Bruce knows better than they do.

Bruce is forced to flee  
for his freedom, leaving behind  
the friends he has made  
and his good dog in the little shack  
that was not a home  
but reminded him a bit of one.

He gets away,  
glimpses heaven and hell  
in the streets of New York,  
and Harlem gets a little bit saved  
and a little bit broken,  
something like his heart.

He brushes the red brick dust  
from his weary feet  
and sets himself firmly  
on yet another new road.

The _morriña_ overtakes him  
along the way, though,  
a sorrow so strong it can kill.

Bruce tries that, he does,  
once and twice and again  
until he loses count  
and loses faith in guns  
and poisons and perhaps death itself.

The Other Guy can spit out a bullet  
but not the taste of defeat.  
That bitterness never washes away.

There used to be feelings,  
desires, wishes,  
hopes and dreams and fears --  
lost along with his youth --  
it doesn't matter now.  
Bruce is tired of them all.

He is just angry.  
He is _always_ angry.  
Strangely enough, he finds  
that this helps a bit.

Bruce makes his way to Goa, India  
where he discovers to his surprise  
that they still speak a little Portuguese  
from the time when it was a colony.  
It's a hint of something familiar  
in a foreign land, and perhaps  
he clings to that small comfort.

He settles into a suburb of Margão,  
the largest city, on a street named  
Rua de Saudades, the Road of Regrets.  
Here is the Christian cemetery  
and the Hindu _shmashana_  
and the Muslim _qabrastan_.  
This is a place of mourning and memories,  
sadness mixing with happiness  
like mud in rainwater.

It is all too apt a place for him,  
where people go by thinking of those  
whom they have loved and lost  
whose remains went down that road.

The residents know what it is  
to wish for once-cherished  
but never-to-return days  
filled with vanished glory;  
for them it was the prize of Portugal,  
for Bruce it was the pride of science.

All of that is now so much history,  
taken out and beaten like a rug.

Bruce believes that he is being discreet  
but the Muslim folk disabuse him of this notion.  
He learns a new word -- _wajd_ \--  
for the sheer transparency of feeling  
at having loved someone and been happy,  
then lost that love into sorrow.

When the Other Guy  
comes out to save a child bride  
from her abusive husband,  
and beats the man into the red clay road,  
Bruce has to run again,  
but he can't bring himself to care.

The music changes as Bruce travels,  
soft _ragas_ played on sitar and tabla,  
subtle shifts he can hear but not understand.

He goes to Kolkata.  
There is disease there,  
breeding in the filthy water,  
but he knows it is no threat to him.  
If only. _If only_.

The spy comes to him  
(they _always_ come to him)  
with tricks and traps  
and hair the color of old blood  
as she delivers bait and ultimatum.

Bruce rocks the empty cradle,  
remembering and mourning  
what was never meant to be.  
Then he dams up the river of tears  
and consents to being a victim again.

The role is old and familiar,  
if worn ragged as his pants.  
It is not so bad, he tells himself,  
to put it on again:  
he has survived far worse.

On the Helicarrier  
everything goes as it always does,  
nobody heeding his warnings  
until it is much too late;  
but Bruce is resigned to this too.

When the explosion comes,  
the walls crack,  
and the red-haired spy  
lies to him again  
as his heart breaks like a dam.

The last thing he thinks is,  
 _Lágrimas de saudade,_  
tears of regret wetting green cheeks  
for a moment before the Other Guy  
tries his damnedest to kill her.

About the Battle of New York,  
however, Bruce has no regrets.  
This time he chooses to let the Hulk out  
of the cage in the back of his mind.  
This time Hulk chooses to smash enemies  
and (mostly) not his new allies.

That they are always angry  
is no longer a secret,  
but somehow it matters less.  
When they can choose,  
it's not so bad.

_Saudade_ is huffing to a stop  
beside Thor, a moment's lull  
to wish for a true friend  
and hate him a little bit  
for not being that.

_Saudade_ is watching Iron Man  
fall without slowing down,  
and even though Hulk catches him  
there is no response,  
vulnerable body limp inside  
bright red-and-gold metal.

Only when Stark is gone  
is it possible to realize  
how much he came to mean  
so very quickly and with  
so very little notice.

There is more pain than rage  
in the roar that brings Stark  
back from the beyond.

When the Avengers move into the tower,  
they are skittish and bemused,  
unsure of how to move through  
this suddenly shared space,  
so for the most part they choose  
not to share it, not really, hiding  
each of them in their own sanctuaries.

Sometimes, though,  
in the wee hours when  
less-troubled people are sleeping  
they stumble across each other  
in a lab or gym or the common floor.

They are terrible  
at comforting themselves,  
let alone each other,  
but they try anyway.  
They are heroes:  
it is not in them  
to ignore another's pain.

_Saudade_ is that first shattering week  
when they all believe that Coulson is dead  
and they can barely breathe through the agony,

when Bruce has nothing to offer  
but a cup of tea that brings dreamless sleep  
and a diffident air that soothes people  
who have reason to distrust white coats,

except that Fury is a lying liar who lies  
(people _always_ lie to Bruce)  
and Coulson comes back after all.

There is a faint taste of sweetness  
amidst the bitter salt of sorrow,  
and this too is _saudade,_  
something the Brazilians  
had tried and failed to explain to Bruce:

that sometimes when you wish for what is lost,  
it can come back to you after all,  
as Stark had returned for the sake of Hulk's roar.

Bruce watches how Stark and Rogers  
flinch whenever they see Coulson,  
how Barton and Romanova  
want to cling but refuse to do so  
and wind up orbiting him instead.

Bruce knows that Coulson is not his  
and thus says little to him.

_Saudade_ is speaking to Barton  
about what it is like to be taken over,  
trapped in the back of your own mind  
while someone else controls your body.

Bruce may be the only person  
who doesn't say over and over again,  
"It wasn't your fault, Barton.  
You couldn't help yourself."  
Bruce knows that it would do no good,  
so he says only, "I understand,"  
and he does, _oh,_ he does.

It doesn't make Barton feel better,  
but maybe, just maybe,  
it makes him feel a little less bad.

_Saudade_ is speaking to Rogers  
about loss, because Bruce knows  
what it's like to lose everyone and everything;  
and about drowning, because he tried that  
along with the gun and the poisons,  
so he knows how much worse it is  
when you breathe icewater that feels like knives  
and you _can't die,_ can't escape into death.

Bruce may be the only person  
who doesn't tell Rogers,  
"Time heals all wounds. Move on.  
You'll get over it eventually."

Bruce knows he won't,  
knows there is no _getting over_  
something like this.  
You just learn to live with the pain,  
like a piece of shrapnel next to your heart.

"I hear you," Bruce says instead,  
and he does, even when Rogers  
does not speak his grief aloud.

Which brings him to Stark, of course,  
because that _is_ part of Stark's problem,  
a cluster of shrapnel like his own personal briar patch.

_Saudade_ is talking to Stark  
about how it feels to give your all  
to a career and a dream and a specialty  
only to discover that you've shot yourself in the foot  
and the price of that knowledge is higher  
than you ever could have imagined

and _you_ aren't even the one paying the worst of it.

Bruce speaks of guilt and shame  
and blood that won't come off  
for any amount of handwashing.  
He speaks of sucking chest wounds  
and broken hearts and desperation,  
emptiness plugged up with unwelcome power.

A terrible privilege.  
Yes, yes it is.

Bruce may be the only person  
who doesn't tell Stark,  
"You've learned your lesson.  
You could go back into weapons,  
just be more careful this time."

Bruce knows what it means  
to beat your own desire to death with a shovel.  
"Green power holds a lot of promise," he says,  
because they both need to believe in  
some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

_Saudade_ is talking to Romanova not at all  
but suspecting that her numbness  
is greater than his own.

She no longer reeks of fear,  
or anger, or anything at all,  
and the hollow space where  
her feelings should be  
is a terrifying thing indeed.

Bruce is not the only person  
who gives her silence a wide berth.

And then there is game night.

_Stark_ has become _Tony,_  
has chosen to invite Bruce  
into his life, into the hidden spaces  
beneath and behind the armor,  
leading him by the hand  
because they are both scared  
and want something familiar to cling to.

They have, somehow, become that --  
familiar, a little fond, two tattered men  
puttering around each other's labs  
and calling each other "science bro" --  
and it helps, just a bit, it does.

_Tenho saudades de você,_  
Bruce thinks of his mother again,  
remembering the illusion of safety  
and the truth of love taken away too soon.  
 _I miss you._

He expects to be scolded  
(someone _always_ scolds him)  
but the harsh words never come  
and the blows never fall.

It takes time  
to learn to relax,  
to remember how to play again,  
but Uncle Phil gives him that.

Uncle Phil gives him everything --  
comfort food and fun games,  
a coffee table to hide under,  
soft brown jammies to snuggle in,  
and as much cuddling as  
Bruce can bring himself to accept.

It's strange,  
how much this matters;  
what should seem silly is instead  
far more meaningful  
than most of his whole life.

His heart, long cramped,  
begins to tingle and revive,  
sharp as pins and needles.

By the time Bruce scrapes his knee  
he is ready to cry over it,  
to let something out  
instead of holding it in  
to join the sea of rage and pain  
that still lies within himself.

Uncle Phil is there  
with gentle hugs and  
cartoon band-aids  
and for once,  
Bruce actually feels better.

There is still something missing,  
but he does not let himself think of that.

They catch him completely by surprise;  
Bruce does not know  
what Phil and Tony have done  
until they return to the tower  
with Betty in tow.

_Betty_.

Bruce's heart swells with joy  
until he thinks that he might die of it,  
this moment of perfect happiness  
in which no rage remains.

Reuniting with Betty  
is what truly teaches him  
to believe in hope once more,  
to understand what it means  
to go from sweet to bitter to sweet again.

_This is what I needed,_ Bruce thinks,  
 _matar as saudades de alguém,_  
as Betty's small soft hands  
pat their way across his body  
to reassure herself that he is uninjured,  
 _to kill the sorrows,  
to catch up with somebody_.

They are not all dead,  
his sorrows and regrets,  
his misses and memories,  
but they are at last

beginning to die down.


End file.
